Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Slender Shadow

“Your vision is truly far-reaching, boss. You are always thinking of the whole of humanity…”

Li Chou was genuinely impressed.

“Nothing much. It’s just the sort of thing you think of once you calm down...”

Colin did not act proud. His gaze shifted past the recovery card to the next item. “What the hell is this ‘corrupted eyeball’ supposed to be?”

He had noticed it before, but compared with the enormous potential value of the potato, he had not paid it much mind.

Now that his excitement had cooled, he realized this reward item seemed to carry a sinister air...

“...It seems to be laughing?”

What kind of clue was that supposed to be?

Colin muttered a complaint and then stopped paying attention to it. He guessed it was probably something similar to a mysterious artifact.

“I’ve collected quite a few mind-glow stones. Using them should be no problem, but where is Water Manor?”

Colin looked around. His gaze finally came to rest among the mountains, and he found that the manor was not far away...

“The manor is on a mountainside, only a little off your current route. If you wish, you could reach it without spending too much time.”

“There is some danger at the manor...”

“It should take you about four hours to reach the foot of the mountain. There are still almost four hours before nightfall.”

“Almost four hours... then it looks like I’ll have to act tomorrow. Sigh, if only I had a battle tank right now. In a positional fight like this, the advantage would be enormous... Forget it. I’ll go scout it out tomorrow first. If the difficulty isn’t too high, I’ll take the mission. If there are other complications, I’ll put it off for now...”

Colin shook his head. Excited as he was, he was not so thrilled that he would truly throw himself into danger for the sake of these gains.

Then his eyes turned to the corpse beneath the collapsed church. He was just about to go over and see what was special about this rat, so he could prepare for tomorrow’s exploration.

But at that very moment, a thirtieth person silently joined the group.

There were thirty people now...

And in that instant, some dangerous condition seemed to have been reached.

In a flash, everyone in the party felt a jolt in their hearts, and Colin’s just-lifted foot suddenly stopped.

Even Li Chou, whose instincts were not especially sharp, felt a primal terror rise within him at that moment.

A cold wind seemed to brush across the soul, and something strange and horrifying was spreading!

“Be careful, defend!”

Colin did not dare be careless. He immediately gave a low command, snapping the others back to awareness and causing the group to tighten rapidly into a defensive formation.

The entire party swiftly surrounded him, protecting him in the center.

Then Colin scanned his surroundings and saw that the environment around them had abruptly become dim and blurred.

What had happened?

He faintly felt that whatever had seemed dangerous all along the way had finally chosen this moment to bare its fangs!

There was no one around.

Yet a chill of the mind kept intensifying.

Colin and the others huddled together, their expressions grim, each of them feeling tense and uneasy...

“You realize now that this is the thing that has made you feel fear all along the way, though you never managed to identify its source.”

“It has chosen to appear at this moment, but the conditions for its outburst are still not yet complete...”

“It seems to be hesitating, waiting for a more fitting moment...”

When this message appeared, Colin and the others felt their hearts sink violently...

Because amid the broken walls and ruins, they suddenly saw a figure appear.

A tall, gaunt figure...

It was probably two and a half meters in height, with limbs stretched unnaturally long, and it stood in a collapsed house more than ten meters away.

Colin had just been there moments ago.

Now, the tall and slender figure stood there like a telegraph pole, facing Colin and the others.

“Here too! There’s another one here!” Li Chou cried out in terror, pointing in another direction.

Before Colin could even turn to look, yet another tall, gaunt figure appeared in an intact house, staring coldly at them through a window with no glass.

This one was even closer than the last!

However, Colin and the others still could not make out its face, only dark, blurred human shapes.

They could not even tell whether the figures were facing them head-on or with their backs turned...

But Colin could clearly feel that these things were watching them, and that dreadful gaze seemed almost tangible, carrying an immense and chilling malice!

“Could it be that they cannot enter the range of the lantern’s light?”

Such a thought surfaced in Colin’s mind.

If that were the case...

Before he could think further, a fourth tall, gaunt figure appeared...

This time it emerged directly within the pool of light, completely overturning Colin’s earlier guess.

And at that very moment, Colin “saw” its shape clearly...

A blurred figure dressed as though in gentlemanly attire, faceless, its entire body seeming unnaturally straightened, as if it had been pulled taut!

“It has absolutely nothing to do with human beings! It may not even have much to do with aberrants!”

This thought instantly sprang into the minds of Colin and the others.

“Tall, gaunt figures—beings even stranger and more bizarre than aberrants. They can erase things from reality through contact. Be careful not to let them touch your body...”

“You realize that they are extremely hard to kill. To deal with them, it seems you have to start from the inside...”

“From the inside?”

Though puzzled, Colin looked at it again and felt his eyes growing dry. He immediately said, “Fall back first. Don’t let them touch you...”

With too little intelligence at hand, Colin had no intention whatsoever of going head-to-head with them.

However, they had not gone far before they were forced to stop again. More tall figures had appeared ahead.

And this time there were more of them—nine at once, enough to make one’s breath freeze...

They were scattered sparsely in all directions, simply standing there and staring at Colin and the others, apparently with no intention of moving.

But under that invisible, fear-laden gaze, cold sweat instantly soaked through everyone’s backs.

Turn back...

“We’re surrounded.”

Colin said grimly.

At this point, there was nowhere left to run.

In less than three minutes, the whole town seemed to have come back to life...

There were “people” everywhere...

From every corner, from every shadow, new figures kept stepping out.

Thousands upon thousands of shadows...

They stood there in silence, making no move at all, yet they exerted a terrifying pressure that could be felt without form.

“No, why aren’t they acting?”

Colin suddenly remembered this crucial question.

The prompt had just said...

They were waiting for a more complete moment...

So the moment still wasn’t complete?

Why wasn’t it complete yet?

The problem lay within...

Colin’s mind raced as he thought, and he faintly felt he was on the verge of uncovering something.

But just then, a tall ghostly figure suddenly appeared in the lantern’s light, less than a meter from the nearest servant...

This time, perhaps because the distance was close enough, it finally reacted!

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